


To Make Much of Time

by hueligan



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 12:22:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5928181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hueligan/pseuds/hueligan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merriell finds Gene after the train incident. Good feelings followed by bad feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Make Much of Time

Merriell licked his lips, steeled himself for the last step. He lifted the brass of the door knocker with clammy fingers. _Nooo_ , he heard in the creak of the hinge. _no! no! no!_ as he brought it down again. Was it loud enough? His uniform wasn’t pressed. He’d left so early in the morning, he’d forgotten to do it. Did he own an iron?

The unending train ride from New Orleans had not been long enough to contemplate the moment before him. He had imagined arriving in a taxi and seeing the fine plantation house where Gene grew up. He’d thought about that house in the war, whenever Eugene would wax poetic about home. Merriell had gotten some things right--the dirt drive that wound its way up from the main road was lined with poplar trees just like he’d guessed--the orange light of the fading afternoon was even the same color as his dreams. But the hot, crawling feeling in his guts had started when he punched his train ticket and was with him still. It left no room in his head to plan out pretty words long overdue.

A curtain flipped. An older black man looked out on him, and Merriell smiled inexpertly. It felt like snarling. The drape dropped again and a moment later the door slid open. The somber man stood before him. “What can I do for you?”

It took a moment to gather the words. “I’m ah, an old friend of Sledge’s. Um. Eugene’s. We served together.” The man still seemed to expect something. Merriell swallowed. “Does he still live here?”

The old man nodded. “I’ll see if he’s in.” And he left Merriell behind the closed door again. The tendrils in his belly writhed like snakes and he knew it still wasn’t too late to run now, that if he turned on his heel and dropped the pack from his shoulder he could be out of sight in half a minute and back at the lumber yard in the morning. He couldn’t remember why he came.

But then the door tugged open and there was Gene, looking every bit like he’d stepped out of one of Merriell’s memories. He was too pale for the golden light, lily-white and soft like he was the day he landed on Pavuvu. He blinked at Merriell with the little furrow in his brow and breathed through an open mouth. His eyes trailed this way and that, as if looking for a punchline, but mostly they were on Merriell’s face and they were squinting, and Merriell wondered if these few years had really made him look so different.

“Snafu,” he said, like he wasn’t sure of the right word. His voice was just like it always had been, of course, and Merriell cracked a smile.

“Shit, Sledgehammer. Nobody’s called me that since the parades died down.” A dumb joke, there hadn’t been any celebrations, but Eugene’s gaze snapped back at the sound of his voice, and he looked like he believed his eyes now. He still didn’t smile.

A quiet step on the hallway tiles made Gene turn. He stepped aside to make room for a well-coifed brunette woman with a concerned look to her. “Mother, this is Merriell. Shelton. We served together.”  
Merriell would have smiled if he had feeling to his face, because Gene’s words told the truth but not the story. He bet that was all the rest of these people would have heard, and it was as good as a lie to just say it like that.

The woman that laid a hand on Gene’s shoulder wore a fine blue dress that looked like the one in the window of Adeline’s in the French Quarter. But this was Mobile and this dress was shiny like real silk, and it wasn’t even a Sunday.

“Why, hello,” she said, smiling like she was out of practice too and looking Merriell up and down. He nodded and hoped it looked nice. She stepped back, sweeping her arm down the foyer and said, “Won’t you come in?” like it just occurred to her. Merriell shot a glance at Gene, who didn’t nod or speak, just stepped aside to let him in and let his gaze bore into the side of Merriell’s head.

The ceilings were arched and high in the house, so high Merriell was still looking up when he was led through a doorway to a floral sofa and asked to sit. Gene took a chair opposite him, and his mother settled at the end, stuck between them in an armchair. It was quiet with these people, except when there was something supposed to be said, and that was like he had expected it too.

“Mrs. Sledge, you have a beautiful home,” Merriell ventured. He knew they were the right words, but it sounded so blue when it came all slurred out of his mouth.

She was pleased, though, and smoothed her skirt and thanked him. Another beat passed. “So, where did you two serve together? For how long?” She looked both ways and Merriell let Eugene answer, but her son’s eyes never lifted from the floor.

“All four years, ma’am. Everywhere Eugene was, I was there with him. ‘Course, he missed a bit of the beginning, but he caught up quick.”

“Oh,” the woman said. “Then... were you called Snafu?” Gene straightened up like he’d been pinched, but said nothing.

“Most everyone did call me that, yes ma’am. Warms my heart to hear I’ve been talked about.” He looked at Gene again but nobody was smiling, and the coffee couldn’t come fast enough.

She tried again. “Where is your family from, Merriell?”

“Louisiana. New Orleans, born and bred. You can prob’ly tell.” She smiled politely. “My family’s just my mama and the kids and me. I help them when I can.”

“Oh,” she said, and her eyebrows jumped a bit. “What do you do?”

“I work in a lumber yard, mostly. Cutting wood. Some odd jobs too.” He tried to laugh. “Every bit helps.” Shit, that wasn’t right either, because now she was fidgeting. He used to be better at this, he was almost sure.

The butler came in with a tray and carafe, and Merriell tried to catch his eye for a bit of a respite, because maybe his roots were a bit like Merriell’s own and he must understand, must smell the tension drowning the room. The old man kept his eyes on his work. With a hot drink in his hands, it was a little better, but the cup was dainty and Merriell worried he’d break it. A clock ticked loud as a drum.

Mrs. Sledge cleared her throat. “Well, Oscar will have supper ready in just a while, and we’re expecting Eugene’s father home any minute. I have to insist you stay and dine with us.”

“That sounds nice. Thank you, ma’am,” said Merriell, because he certainly didn’t know the right manners involved in turning down hospitality. That was all right, though. Whatever happened couldn’t be worse than this stony-faced ghost of Gene staring every which way but at him. If he left now, it would be worse than failure.

As promised, the door scraped open after just a few more minutes, and a stately-looking, rounded man in glasses appeared in the doorway. “Hello. Who’s this?” he said, and the jaunty way he said it let Merriell breathe again.

Merriell stood and moved to reach a hand across the table. “Merriell Shelton, sir. An old war buddy of Eugene’s. Thought I’d come to visit.”

“Well, any friend of my son’s is a friend of mine.” He shook the proffered hand heartily and sat himself to Eugene’s left. Gene was listless still, but he looked up to acknowledge his father. “Are you in town for long?”

“I hadn’t thought, to be truthful. I, uh. I have an aunt in Mobile and I was coming to see her. Thought I’d stop in.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Gene said a touch too loudly and looked up into Merriell’s widened eyes, finally. “He’s got no family here. He’s here to see me.” His voice was hard and bitter. He looked like Pavuvu, but he sounded like Okinawa.

It was too much for Mrs. Sledge, whose hands flitted in her lap, but the old doctor was better equipped and kept his expression smooth. “Well, then it’s obvious,” he said. “He’ll need a room for the night. Oscar will set up the guest bed for you.” Gene blinked hard and ground his jaw. Hard to say whether this improved things.

Gene was quiet for the rest of the chit-chat, and when Oscar finally announced dinner, the whole party relocated to the dining room with only Dr. Sledge speaking. The table was set like a king’s, of course, and Merriell took the seat he was shown across from Gene. There were two of everything--forks, spoons, glasses, and knives. He watched Eugene to see which ones to use. When the main course came, it was a tiny roasted bird.

“You like quail? I shot it myself,” said the old doctor.

Merriell smiled carefully. “I don’t know, sir. Never had it. I’ve hunted, just never these things.” He didn’t want to think of how Mrs. Sledge would react to talk of gators and possums. But the flesh was good and tasted just like chicken and rosemary.

The pit in Merriell’s stomach filled up with food, but Gene was all frigid silence and so Merriell couldn’t kick the nervous ache completely. Conversation passed easily enough around the redheaded young man, but he still hadn’t said a word aloud when the doctor invited their guest into the parlor for a drink. “For a man-to-man talk, Eugene, you’ll have him back in a little while.” Such a blessing that the doctor could ignore his son’s iciness. Could be he was used to it.

So as Gene stalked off to brood and his mother attended to her needlework, Merriell was sat in a soft leather armchair and offered two fingers of whiskey. “Thanks, sir. This’ll sit well about now.”

He’d meant to be polite, but the doctor understood. “You shouldn’t mind my son. This is the worst I’ve seen for a while, but he gets this way every now and again since he came home. You know better than anyone that the war was hard on him.”

Merriell stared into his drink. “It was, on everybody.”

“I don’t doubt that. Everyone carries tragedy with them in different ways. For Eugene, it’s anger that flares up sometimes. Anger or melancholy. I just met you, but I expect you carry it too, same as every soldier.” Merriell nodded slowly. The doctor offered him a cigar, but Merriell turned it down and was passed a cigarette from an ebony box instead. The doctor lit a cigar for himself. “I don’t intend to bring up a troubled past. I do hope, though, that you being here will do Eugene some good. It clearly means something to him.”

Merriell managed to keep from saying something cynical. “Guess so. We were good friends then.”

They smoked in silence for a while. The old man was pensive. “Were you called Snafu during the war?”

Merriell looked up, remembering the queer exchange from before dinner. “Yes, sir.” He paused to take a drag and a swallow. “Has he talked about me?”

“Well, no.” He seemed to deliberate for another moment. “He doesn’t talk about the war at all, but he has dreams. Nightmares, almost every night. Sometimes he shouts out, and we’ve heard that name more than once.”

“Ahh,” Merriell said, for the sake of saying something. He wondered that Mrs. Sledge hadn’t had the sense to leave it alone in front of Gene.

“There are other names too, and plenty else. Before tonight, my wife and I assumed you had been one of the men who didn’t make it home.”

They both seemed out of things to say, and so they finished their drinks against the crackle of the fire. When the logs had burned lower, the doctor stood up. “It’s late enough for me. If you’re ready, I’ll show you your room.” He led the way up the stairs, noting the location of the back porch, the telephone, the washroom. Finally he stopped at a door. “This one’s yours. Eugene is just next to you, and the missus and I are down the hall.” He clapped a hand onto Merriell’s shoulder. “You’re welcome here as long as you like. We’re all glad to have you, really.” He left him in the hallway with a good-night, and Merriell listened to his footsteps fade into the walls of the big house.

The bedroom was predictably lush, and though the dim lamplight left him half-blind, Merriell could feel the thick shag of a Persian rug stuck up between his toes. Pajamas were set out for him, looking just like something Eugene would wear. Merriell threw the shirt onto a chair and changed into the pants, then crawled into bed stripped bare to the waist. He laid back on the bed without lifting the covers, very aware that he hadn’t gotten to shower and was spreading his grime on a comforter likely worth more than a month’s rent. He flicked off the light, and the keen of cicadas outside the window lulled him halfway to sleep.

Through the wall, he heard the creak of mattress springs, and then the shift of floorboards. It was Gene, he knew, walking around. It must be past midnight, but the footsteps kept sounding for five minutes, then ten.

It was more than Merriell could do to lay a body’s length from the very force that chased him onto a train in New Orleans--sinking into Gene’s mattress, wearing Gene’s clothes--and sleep. With no goal in mind except to quench the squirming in his belly, Merriell stood and slipped quietly into the hallway.

Outside the other door, he listened a moment to the movement inside. He rapped his knuckles on the door so tentatively that he couldn’t be sure anyone heard, but the sounds stopped. He pictured Gene inside, rigid, listening.

“Sledge,” he whispered. Then louder, “Sledgehammer. It’s me.”

Another creak and groan and the door sank in. Gene’s red hair was mussed like a kid’s, and he wore a pajama shirt just like the one in the other room. The mask of indifference was gone, but his brow furrowed deeply now, accusing. “What are you doing here, Snafu?” The words sounded like they had simmered in him for hours.

Merriell shrugged, unprepared to defend himself. “Just came to say hello is all,” he said lamely.

The muscle in Gene’s jaw tightened and Merriell readied himself to catch a fist, if he had to. But Gene just sighed and spoke to the door as he leaned on it. “Go to bed. It’s late. I’m tired.” Eyes all rimmed in red, he sure looked it.

Merriell wondered again just what he was doing here. “You get you some sleep then, Sledgehammer.” His gaze lingered on the shadows under Gene’s eyes. They were too dark, his skin too pale. “You look like shit.”

Before Merriell could drift off to sleep, the cloying scent of Gene’s pipe smoke leaked into his consciousness. He didn’t dream. Just as the sky was lightening, he woke to the sound of muffled screams, but none of them called out for him.

\-------------------------------

 

In the morning, Merriell was the last up. His service button-up was wrinkled and sweaty, so he wore his cleanest white T-shirt with his uniform trousers. Eugene’s mother greeted him cordially in the kitchen. Her son brooded behind his plate of oatmeal, but he didn’t look so startlingly wan as the night before. A hot breakfast felt odd and Merriell didn’t manage more than a few bites before his stomach and his squirming legs forced him to his feet.

“Do you need something, dear?”

“No, ma’am. Just restless, I guess. Thought I’d take a stroll, see the place Eugene was always going on about.”

Mrs. Sledge perked up. “Oh, how nice. Eugene can show you around. He knows every trail on the grounds, don’t you dear?”

Eugene huffed through his nose. “I wasn’t planning on going out today, mother.”

“Nonsense, Gene. Don’t be rude. You can’t stay inside all day when you have guests. And you wouldn’t want Merriell getting lost.”

“He can if he wants to,” Gene said, which made his mother purse her lips.

Eventually, she chased the two of them out of the house. Gene stormed out first, and Mrs. Sledge handed a wrapped bottle of lemonade to Merriell and smiled in apology.

Merriell trailed behind Gene as he plunged into the woods. Eugene kicked up dust ahead of him, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Each time Merriell kicked a rock or snapped a twig, Gene twitched and pulled another few yards ahead.

In the cheerful morning sunshine, surrounded by the chirp of songbirds, Gene’s anger tipped from worrisome to amusing. An idea occurred, and Merriell drew his lips together and began to whistle. At first tunelessly, and then a few notes crashed together and he worked out the melody that played in the cab on yesterday’s ride from the station. _After one whole quart of brandy, like a daisy I awake. With no Bromo-Seltzer handy, I don’t even shake..._

Gene raised up his shoulders around his ears and picked up his pace, footfalls pounding against the road. Merriell grinned, licked his lips, started again. _I’m wild again, beguiled again, a simpering, whimpering child again..._ He let Gene widen the distance between them and just whistled louder. He let the high notes carry with a trill and grinned at the sight of Gene’s ears reddening.

They walked down a wide, straight path through a willow grove, and just as Merriell thought he could see the road curve up ahead, Gene veered left and crashed through the brush, taking long, awkward strides over the shrubbery.

“Sledge,” Merriell called, but he trudged on into the growth. “Gene,” he said a little louder. He followed into the trees, jogging a few paces. Up ahead, Gene broke through the trees into a clearing and didn’t slow. Merriell clambered out of the trees after him. “Fuckin’ Eugene.”

Gene stopped, arms out to his sides, then whirled around.

“Fuck you, Shelton. Goddamn you.” His voice was shrill, his lip curled in a grimace. “It’s been three fucking years.”

Merriell raised his hands up, placating. “Why don’t you cool that lip off before your mama hears her baby boy swearing up a blue streak out here.”

Gene looked ready to spit, but his next words were quieter. “You can’t just show up like this, after--” He swallowed. “What did you think was gonna happen?”

Merriell kept his voice low and measured his steps forward like Gene was a cornered animal. “Call me crazy, but I thought you’d be happy to see me. And here you’ve been fixing to knock my teeth in since I shown up.” He dropped his hands. “It’s good to see you, Sledgehammer.”

Eugene breathed deep and covered the short distance to a big tree. He sat down in the dirt with his back to the trunk and pulled his knees up, staring out at the clearing.

“You’re gonna dirty your fancy slacks,” said Merriell as he dropped down at his own tree a few yards away. He lit a cigarette.

A breeze played through the branches overhead, and Merriell barely heard over the rustle of leaves when Eugene said, “Why now?”

He shrugged. It was true that there had been time. Nothing but time. But something like fear had pushed Merriell wordlessly off the train three years ago, and that same something had kept his back turned to thoughts of Gene. Only when a fine-looking redheaded girl would flash him a smile in a bar or when some out-of-towner dropped their Rs with a familiar honeyed inflection would his mind wander, and he always woke up in the middle of those nights and felt like crying. It had taken three years for Merriell to really know that it wouldn’t stop happening if he didn’t do something. “Felt right, I guess.”

Gene was packing his pipe. “How’d you know what you’d be walking into, huh? What if you knocked on my door and they’d told you I was dead?”

Merriell crushed the butt of his smoke between his fingers. “Now, why would you be dead, Sledgehammer?” Gene said nothing, but held his unlit pipe in his mouth. Merriell addressed the open air. “Don’t think ‘cause there’s no gun in your hands you don’t have a job to do. You got a good family and a life ahead of you. You could be a doctor like your old man. And you wanna run off and be a coward, well, fuck that, Sledge.” He took a long draw. “Can’t do that when you got people. You got no right.”

When Gene spoke, his voice was like a child’s. “It’s hard. All the time.”

“Don’t I know it. It’s harder when you won’t talk to nobody.” Merriell couldn’t rightfully say, but it sounded true.

A long while passed, but the silence felt less now like the taut strain of the night before and more like it used to, when the two of them had lived in foxholes with the days and nights blended together. Merriell stood and found the lemonade bottle where he had dropped it, hidden in a bramble. He passed it first to Eugene, like he always did.

Gene struck a match, inhaled. “Have you heard from anyone else lately?”

Merriell blew smoke rings. “Burgie has his girl. I think they’re married by now. Leyden sent a letter sayin’ he’s spending his golden years playing golf. Imagine that clumsy fucker trying to swing a club. De L’Eau lives out west. Don’t know what he’s up to.” Eugene nodded, maybe not listening at all, but Merriell thought the man wanted him to keep talking. “Yeah, everybody went home, same as you and me. But damn, I can see what you always went on about, Gene. With this sun and this big ol’ open sky, I can see what you Alabama boys stay here for. That and the girls. You see these southern belles decorating the streets, walking around pretty as Christmas trees. Shit, I’ve never seen nothing like it.” In truth, they weren’t anything more special than the girls back home, but Merriell thought Gene expected to hear that kind of thing from him. “What about you, Sledge, got yourself a girl?”

He shook his head and said, “No, Snaf, I don’t,” with a finality that belied the subject. Merriell could understand. It felt a bit hollow to him whenever he heard of people getting married, especially the soldiers that knew damn well what kind of place the world was.

The mid-June sun was high, and even in the shade the men sunk down into stillness. Merriell closed his eyes, listening to the hum of insects, and when he opened them again the sun had moved in the sky. To his right, Gene smoked and stared into the middle distance.

“How long was I out?” Merriell said, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“Couple of hours. It’s about three.”

“Shit,” Merriell said, the word stretching into two syllables. A chattering sounded in the boughs overhead. “I could about eat that squirrel right now.”

Gene looked over both shoulders. “We’ve got Saskatoon everywhere. Eat some of them.”

“Saskatoon? You tryin’ to poison me?” said Merriell, but he stood up and picked his way into one of the bushes. He found a cluster of dark violet berries and laughed. “This here is Juneberry, ya hick.” He took a mouthful right off the vine, then spat it straight out again. Gene whirled around at the sound.

“The fuck!” Merriell yelled, still wiping his lips and wincing. He’d sprayed his white shirt with bits of purple and spittle. “There’s thorns in yours!”

Gene pressed his lips together, but the corners of his mouth lifted further the more his friend spat and fussed, and before long he was shaking with laughter, and he had to put his pipe down to steady himself. Merriell caught the same mood and cracked up, giddy to see Eugene looking all right. He called him “asshole” and punched his shoulder, but they both cackled at nothing until their sides ached and they had to catch their breath.

Merriell pulled his knife from his pocket and cut two branches rich with clusters of the dangerous fruit. He sat back down, this time at Gene’s oak, and he handed one off. Gene still giggled but managed, “You’ve got a funny way of laughing, you know.”

“Aw, shit, I hate it. S’like a goddamn hyena.” And it was. High and hysterical and uninhibited.

Gene shook his head. “Nah, it lets people know you mean it. There’s no fooling anyone with that squawking,” and he chuckled again a bit.

They stayed until the sun was almost tucked behind the horizon and walked back the same way they had come, this time side by side. Dinner was livelier than the night before, not because Dr. Sledge said any less but because Eugene slipped into the conversation as well, and when Merriell looked at him he would look back and smirk into his water glass. Mrs. Sledge glowed with contentment, and even when Merriell made an off-color comment about the humidity gathering in every sweaty nook of him she just looked at her son and smiled to herself.

The parlor was the boys’ that evening, as the doctor had letters to write. Merriell settled into his same chair, and Eugene sat in his father’s seat and clipped a cigar. In the collared shirt and vest he’d donned for supper, he looked like a younger version of his father. “Sledge, you make a fine picture. You show up like that at the university and they’ll make you a doctor just like that.”

But Eugene just shook his head. “Not likely for me, Mer. I’m no good with blood.”

Merriell almost said why the hell not, you’ve seen plenty enough you should be over being squeamish by now. But the image of a puddle of red mud flashed in his vision and he knew he couldn’t do it now either, even if he’d had Gene’s mind and schooling.

They didn’t stay long. Gene showed Merriell the shower and handed him thick white towels, and that was good night. The water that ran over Merriell’s back was a little too hot, and he couldn’t figure out the taps. The shining sink fixtures might have had real gold in them. It wasn’t so bad, though, because Eugene had come back, and if this was Gene’s house, well then it couldn’t be so foreign. Merriell settled in underneath his comforter that night and heard nothing through the wall. As it seemed to always be with Gene, the silence was a comfort, and he fell asleep with his arms stretched out wide on the mattress.

\---------------------------------------

 

Merriell sat up like a shot to the sound of suffering. It took a moment to remember where he was and why he didn’t have his boots on. When he collected himself, he jumped up and ran into the hallway bleary-eyed, because it was Gene that woke him, shouting out his torment into the night.

Merriell burst through the door, forgetting his feeble manners utterly. Gene was curled under his blanket, grasping a corner of it tight in his hands. His face pushed into his pillow, as if, even in his sleep, he thought to spare his family. Merriell dropped onto the edge of the mattress, one hand on Gene’s shoulder and the other trying to pull his face out of the fabric.

“Sledge. Hey, come on. Come on, Sledgehammer,” he tried over and over again. “It’s me, it’s me, you’re okay. Gene, it’s okay.”

Eugene’s eyes popped open, wide and wild and unseeing. “No!” he squealed. “No, Snaf!”

Merriell put a hand on each cheek and shook him gently. “Gene, it’s all right, you’re okay. I’m here, hon’, I’m here.” The endearment came out automatically, like from his own mother. Words of comfort. All he could think to do.

Eugene’s face screwed up, seeing finally but not remembering. “No...,” he whimpered, and fell into a pit of it. “No, no, no, noooo....” He shut his eyes tight and rolled over, away from Merriell. He sobbed once, an ugly, plaintive sound.

Merriell planted a hand on the mattress and hoisted himself over Eugene’s body and landed too hard, too hard because this needed tenderness. Damn it, he was trying.

He scooped an arm under Eugene’s neck and pulled the man over him, tight to him. It ended with Gene’s ear against his chest, his arms clutched around, hands tangled in his red hair and squeezing. Gene breathed too deep, his shallow chest rattling, and then fell to pieces. He cried out his misery in spasms that Merriell tried to soothe with words and a gentle constant sibilant shhh. “It’s all right. No one’s here but us. It’s all right. It’s just me and you.” When he felt Gene taking time to breathe between his fits, he narrated. “You’re at home. Your folks are down the hall, and they’re trying to sleep, ya idiot. I’m here, I’m here with you and there’s no bad guys, no one hurt. You’re in your bed, and I’m with you. Now hush.”

Gene’s breathing slowed, and his sobbing quieted. He reached a hand up and clutched at Merriell’s chest, his fingers tangling in the sparse hairs.

Laid back on the mattress, Merriell massaged at Eugene’s scalp, a little rougher than a regular soothing stroking. It was all right. Eugene was used to that.

An idea came to Merriell that he grappled with for a moment. But Eugene felt so slight and cold against his chest that he thought he’d better try something. He began to hum, carefully, so the rumble in his chest didn’t startle the fragile man. He fought with his clenched throat to achieve the same tune as earlier, the one that had then brought Eugene into fits. An octave lower than before, he hummed, and Eugene quieted almost immediately. Stroking Gene’s back through his nightshirt, he added words, though the pitch of his voice disobeyed him at the best of times. He was no Jimmie Davis, but he knew it would be plenty good enough.

 _He’s a fool and don’t I know it_  
_But a fool can have his charms_  
_Hmm hmm hmm and don’t I show it_  
_Like a babe in arms_

 _Hmm hmm same old sad sensation_  
_Lately I’ve not slept a wink_  
_Since this half-pint imitation_  
_Put me on the blink_

 _I’m wild again, beguiled again_  
_A simpering, whimpering child again_  
_Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered_  
_Am I..._

To anyone else, in any other time, Merriell would have sung the soppiest lyrics with suggestive glee and reveled in watching his companions squirm. Here, in the dark, with his heart beating in Eugene’s ear, the words were too immediate, and he let his lips muffle them into obscurity.

Gene was so still that Merriell thought he must be asleep, having worked himself to exhaustion. He nearly started when Gene spoke.

“Mer?”

“Yeah, Gene.”

Gene’s fingers drummed against his chest. “Thanks.”

“You woke me up,” Merriell said, and Gene made a tiny sound like he meant to laugh. Merriell asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Was it the airfield?”

Gene shook his head. “Bits of everywhere. It’s always like that.” He paused. “You were in it.”

“Thought so. Something bad happen to me?”

Gene said nothing for a long time. Merriell took it for a yes, but then the man murmured into his chest, “We were on the train. I could see you, but my eyes were closed, and I couldn’t move.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I watched you go.”

Merriell wasn’t aware he’d been carding his fingers thought Gene’s hair until he stopped. He took in a deep breath and let it out slow. “Fuck, Gene.... I’m sorry.”

“Then why?”

“Aw, hell. You know I’m no good at that kind of thing.”

Eugene lifted his head to look up at Merriell. His glassy eyes bled into half-dried rivulets down his cheeks. “What does that even mean?”

This was what he didn’t come here for. Merriell clenched his jaw and glowered at the flowery wallpaper. “What? You thought I’d come home with you? Thought you’d dress me up pretty and show me around town? Get down on one knee and make a lady out of me? Fuckin’ A, Sledge.”

Gene recoiled. “Don’t do that.” They lapsed into silence, and Merriell could see from the corner of his vision Eugene formulating something. He faced Merriell again, demanding. “Why is it so important to you to have everyone think you don’t care about anything?”

Merriell took his hands off of Gene. “Maybe I don’t.”

Gene sat up, leaving a cold spot on where his weight had been. “Fuck off, Shelton. Get out of here.”

Without hesitation, Merriell pushed off the mattress and stalked into the hall, shutting the door louder than he’d meant to.

Next door, he dropped down onto his own bed. He traced one hand absentmindedly over his torso. Alone, he could look back on the past hour and see something wrong with it. Eugene had been all he needed in the Pacific--the only consistent good. They had lived different lives in a place where nothing had been clean, neither clothes nor air nor conscience. Most comforts had been a figment of the imagination, and of course it had been different. Happiness was grasped in tiny increments with desperate hands, and if it came in the form of gruesome delights or destructive fantasies it was nobody’s place to ask questions. On many nights, when Gene had watch, Merriell had spent hours with his eyes and his mind on Eugene. When Gene’s pain became his own, it was as sane and normal as breathing. When the red of his hair took on a radiant hue in the sunlight that made Merriell’s heart hurt, or when the pull of Gene’s lips on his pipe elicited a twitch in his groin, that seemed to make sense enough too.

But now they had a roof to keep the rain off of them, and life wasn’t like that anymore. It was too easy to blur through those lines with Gene, to find himself with the man crying against his chest, to sing a love song and have to hide the words. It had gone too far already. This was it, then. It was this was what had kept him sequestered in New Orleans, trying to keep the fairy tale of those four years from bleeding into reality, where it didn’t belong and couldn’t survive.

From the neighboring room, the creak of floorboards sounded for hours.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------

 

The sun was just cresting over distant hills when the train whistle blew its last call. Merriell took up a whole bench, his back to the window. There was nothing to see on the platform.

He’d considered leaving a note, or maybe a few. One for Mrs. Sledge, to thank her for her hospitality. One for the doctor whose kind words had saved him the first night. To Gene, he’d wanted to say everything. I love you. I’m sorry. Forget you know me. Nothing would have been enough. He left as cleanly as he’d come.


End file.
